Dec292009
MIT nuclear reactor having trouble switching from bomb-grade fuel
Filed under Events by david brooks at 8:53 am
A number of colleges built nuclear reactors in the ’50s and ’60s as part of their nuclear engineering programs but are closing them down. This includes Worcester Polytech, which has shut its reactor down, and UMass-Lowell, which still has its reactor. (Note: This article originally said, wrongly, that UML was also shutting.)
Among the schools with a reactor is MIT, which is keeping it. However, the school is supposed to switch it from using highly enriched uranium (bomb material) to low enriched uranium - a change that we’re also trying to get Iran to make. The Globe reports today, however, that the MIT conversion is facing a delay; it’s supposed to happen by 2014 but probably won’t.
The story emphasizes the political aspect rather than the technical, so the cause for the delay isn’t entirely clear, although the story says that part of the issue may be that the converted reactor would be less efficient. (Here’s a paper I found about the process of conversion that dates to 1998 - this isn’t exactly a new issue.)
Background from the story:
The MIT reactor, which was built in 1958 when the university began its nuclear engineering department, is now used for a variety of academic research and also brings in about $1.5 million a year from commercial work, which covers about 60 percent of the annual operating costs. …In addition to training nuclear engineers, one of its primary uses is medical research, including cancer therapies and studies of cell biology and blood chemistry. It is also a money-making enterprise, by radiating seeds used in prostate cancer treatments and by turning silicon into high-performance semiconductors for the hybrid car market.
January 5th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Umm, I mentioned seeing this to a neighbor that works at the UMass-Lowell reactor, and the response was that they are going strong, not shutting down. They did confirm that WPI was shutting that reactor down. David, where did you hear that UMass-Lowell might be closing?
January 5th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Well, you know, I remembered it as I wrote the post and thought I checked … but now I can't find where I checked it, and a search through the UML catalog finds many classes that use a reactor. I suspect I was conflating a WPI interview with unrelated UMass-Lowell interviews. I will fix the article.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
They did confirm that WPI was shutting that reactor down.
April 30th, 2010 at 9:52 am
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